No, they rushed the format out to the market. Then afterwards discovered it does not transmit very well.

I used to work for a company (based in the US) making/selling imaging boards which we sold in the UK. What my colleage could NEVER understand is why they designed the NTSC version first, then created a PAL version. When according to him (if I recall correctly) to convert the PAL version to NTSC means removing a couple of capacitors and resistors).

He used to call NTSC: Never twice the same colour.

The Americans did the same trick with HD. The brought out an Analogue version first, where in Europe they waited till the digital version was ready then released the technology.

A lot of Americans might have problems in future due to DHCP etc.. where if they don't have a Digital input, the picture will be displayed in SD only.